Seeing Green!

After feeling so putridly ill for the past 2 weeks which generally affected my overall mood, St. Patrick's Day in Vegas couldn't have come at a better time. So we hit Fremont Street tonight in search of a little Erin go Brauch.  I found this little fellow sitting on the bar outside the D casino on Fremont Street!

I don't know if I was seeing things or not, but there were leprechauns everywhere!

Hubby took this photo. I don't think she's a leprechaun, but she made very good use of the color green.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Bronchitis the Musical

The adventures in Las Vegas continue as I spent the night in the Summerlin Hospital Emergency Room Resort and Casino.  As I noted on my FB page, there are no slot machines in this place.  This is not like the Heart Attack Grill which I blogged about earlier.  This is the actual ER.  Went there because I'm sick.  

Yes, Sin City has made me sick.  As we walked into the ER at 11 PM, the only signs we could see were PEDS, Pediatrics, and colorful pictures along with crying infants in the waiting room.  I glared at hubby and said, "Did you bring me to a CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL????"   But after speaking with the triage nurse, she assured me this was an adult hospital.  She also looked a little relieved that they had a grown up to work on.  But I still felt funny having to tell her my weight wasn't a childsize 13.2 pounds.

Long story short, 5.5 hours later they said I have bronchitis.  They gave me meds and more meds to take home with instructions to rest (I'm in VEGAS, are you kidding me??) and to take my temp and get back there immediately if I have a temp. 

Dutifully this morning, I took my temp with my newest Vegas souvenir (a Vegas Walgreen's thermometer) and announced to hubby that something is wrong with this digital temperature taker because it says L.L6.   What is THAT error code???  He laughed and reminded me that I was blond, left-handed, Polish and had the thermometer upside down.  By the way, I feel better already.

Windy!

Only 3 weeks left here in Vegas.  So now the question becomes do we want to snowbird again next year and if so . . .where?

That led us to our journey of the day to the planned community outside of Vegas called Summerlin.  We hit the GPS and off we went to see if Summerlin would be a great place to winter next year.  As I got in the car, I noticed that my hair stood straight up from a whirling gust of wind.  I guess in Ohio when we get 45 mph wind gusts, it's a tornado and we are cowering in the basement.  But it's Vegas!  It's just wind. 

The sky grew dark as we drove into Summerlin.   But it wasn't from rain, it was sand and debris flying through the air!  I thought about sticking my head out the window because I've heard that dermabrasion is good for the skin.  Thank goodness I didn't because just then a very large tree branch blew in front of our car and hit the front grill!  That was followed by countless plastic grocery bags smacking every car and minutes later, a wet mop came flying in front of us!  And down the road a bit, a refrigerator box flew on by.  I thoroughly expected to see Elvis Presley fly across the road next.  After all, it is Vegas.

 
We loved Summerlin.  We didn't, however, like our lunch on the way home at Dona Maria's Tamales which one would think would have excellent tamales, but alas. . . . their tamales were boring.

On the way home, we smelled something burning.  Thinking it might be a car near us, we didn't think much of it.  But it continued.  We stopped the car and sure enough it was our car that smelled like it was burning!   Not wanting to end our adventurous day exploding into flames, we pulled into a Goodyear Service Center where they put the car up on the lift, removed the remaining tree branches from the grill and pointed out to us that somehow a plastic grocery bag had gotten wrapped around the exhaust system.  No worries, the burning smell would be gone as soon as the plastic bag melted off.   I wondered what a melting mop would have smelled like if it had gotten caught on our exhaust system.

This one's for you, Bill!

It's been a shitty few weeks.  After returning from my Dad's funeral, we got the awful news that our best friend at home, Bill, died.  Not able to afford the whopping $$$$ to fly back to pay our respects, hubby and I decided to do our own thing to honor our friend.

If our recent losses have taught us anything, it has taught us to do things we want to do NOW.  Don't wait.   So with that mantra in mind here in Vegas, I gave hubby a list of things we wanted see/do in Vegas before we leave for home at the end of March.

So hubby (aka Mr. Ticketmaster) got online and started booking things for us to do.  I thought he might spread things out a bit, but at this point, we have gone to 3 shows in 3 nights with more to come!  Whew!

We saw "Jersey Boys" about the life of Frankie Valli.  It was great!  That was preceded by a romantic dinner at Martorano's in Paris Casino.

Next night, we saw Santa Fe and Fat City Horns.  This band is made up of the A List background musicians from the big shows that play in Vegas like Celine, Beyonce, Donnie and Marie.  And the shows are pretty much word of mouth advertising.  Their music is awesome.  If you are ever in Vegas, they are at the South Point Casino Showroom on Monday nights at 10 PM.  Only costs $5 to get in at the door.

Last night, we went to see Penn & Teller the famous magicians.   Once we got seated, we listened to a great jazz combo entertain and we were told that all of the audience was asked to come on stage and sign a manila envelope that was to later be used in the act.  Hubby and I went on stage to sign.  We were the only ones up there since we were early.  And the music coming from this combo was great.  So I grabbed my darling hubby who had had dance lessons 15 years ago so he could dance at our wedding and he gave me a twirl right there in the middle of the Penn & Teller Theater stage--just us.  We didn't get any applause--just in our hearts.  I couldn't understand why no one else would want to do that, too!

Here's the thing, though.  Every time we have done something fun like this, we have had our best friend, Bill, or my Dad in mind.  Before every show, we play blackjack and get the requisite free drinks.  We always order Tanqueray and tonic, a favorite drink of Bill's.  And we make a toast at the blackjack table TO BILL! or TO DAD! and have everyone else there join us.  We honor those we lost and loved by doing things they would have also enjoyed.  Hope some day someone will do the same for me.

3000 Miles to Graceland

Yesterday, SPRING happened in Nevada.   Spring is my favorite season and this year because I'll be going back to Ohio in April, I get to experience spring twice!  Here is a cactus in bloom that we ran into.  Those cacti on either side, we found out later, are called "Jumping Cacti" Cylindropuntia fulgida because the parts actually jump out onto you if you get too close.  I was close and lucky I didn't get attacked!

Nelson, NV is where we ended up to see the desert in bloom.  Not an easy place to find, it turns out.  It is located at the southern tip of Nevada and has 37 residents.  Gold and silver was discovered there in 1861.  It's known as a ghost town.  And throughout the history of the town, there were disasters, killings and lots of sinister folks hanging around.  Then there were also flash floods from the nearby Colorado River that wiped out half the town!

What is left is the gold and silver mine, a ghost town and remnants of what is left.  Very fun to wander around.   The movie "3000 Miles to Graceland" was filmed there.

Not sure what happened there!  But it's also part of the town.

This is my favorite thing.  A piano sitting among the jumping cacti!!!  Name THAT tune!

 

Five miles down the road from Nelson is the Colorado River.  I took this picture with my cell phone and as eerie and surreal as this looks, that's how it was.  There were no other humans to be seen or heard there except hubby and me.  It was a place so peaceful.  That's something I needed after the past few weeks in my life.

There are no Paczki in Vegas

As someone of Polish descent, Pączki (pronounced POONCH-key) are a big part of Fat Tuesday.  In fact, in my family, it's a given that one must eat a Pączki each year on the Tuesday before Lent for good luck.

For the uninitiated, we are not talking about just a jelly donut.  Pączki are made from especially rich dough containing eggs, fats, sugar, yeast and sometimes milk. They feature a variety of fruit and creme fillings and can be glazed, or covered with granulated or powdered sugar. We are talking 450 calories and 25 grams of fat!   

Where I come from in the upper mid-west, there is a large Polish/Hungarian population and hence, there are Paczki in the grocery stores and bakeries all over the place.  Last week it dawned on me that there aren't even good donut shops in Las Vegas, let alone ethnic bakeries.  So where in the world would I find my lucky Paczki to enjoy and ensure a year ahead of good fortune??

I checked all of the local grocery stores--none.  The internet revealed ONE Polish delicatessen in Las Vegas.  And yes, they said they would have paczki!

However, I'm retired and sleep in until at least 9:30 AM (depending upon what time the Thunderbirds decide to practice over my bedroom).  By the time I rolled out of bed and got ready to leave, a phone call to the Polish delicatessen revealed that they were sold out of paczkis and had no idea where I could locate one.   The early bird gets the paczki, apparently.  I was out of luck. . . literally for the entire year.

However, I got a little text message from two young friends of mine later in the day.  They were wishing me a Happy Pączki Day and eating paczki on my behalf!  So maybe all is not lost.  Not sure if surrogate paczki eating will ensure good luck throughout the coming year.   We shall see!

Moapa Indian Reservation

Ten years ago on a visit to Las Vegas, I wanted to visit an actual Native American Indian reservation.  In the guidebooks, I found that close by was the Moapa Reservation AND they had a casino!  We hopped in the car with the directions (this was pre-GPS in the car) and off we went to find the casino.

A great big sign says "You are entering the Moapa Indian Reservation".  And after that sign, there was nothing for as far as the eye could see.  We decided to simply travel down the one road and surely there would be signs or we could see the casino or something.

On we journeyed to a crossroads.  After an argument and flip of the coin, we took the road that look most traveled.  And we drove and drove and drove.  Finally there was a little sign pointing ahead to a two pump gas station.  That wasn't the casino, we were certain.  On we traveled for miles and miles of just desert and tumbleweed until we looked at each other and said, "You don't think that gas station was . . . . . the casino!??"

We turned around and traveled back.  By this time, the entire day had been spent traveling the roads of the reservation.  If the Indians were hiding, they were doing it quite well, because we never saw a living thing!  On the horizon was the gas station again and we pulled in.  There was a little white metal building and then the gas pumps.  If nothing else, we thought we could go in and ask for directions to the casino.

I opened the door of the white metal structure and it was a tiny carryout.  On the left was a wall of about a dozen slot machines!  We had found the Moapa Casino!   I had to buy a souvenir of what turned out to be a day-long trip around the entire reservation.  I found a Moapa coffee mug on the shelf which I bought.

Having broken my Moapa coffee mug a year ago, I vowed to go back and get another one if we ever came back to Vegas.  So here we are.  Off we went to find the reservation again and replace my cofffee mug!

With a GPS, the Travel Plaza (as it is now called) was easy to find.  Now, they have an actual, yet still small, casino.  Also, now they are renowned for massive fireworks, cigarettes and booze sales tax free.  There is even a little restaurant where we had lunch.   I won $12 on a penny slot machine which paid for my lunch.

The sad part, though, is that they no longer sell Moapa Indian coffee mugs.  They had Elvis mugs!  And personalized blinking key chains.  And flipflops.  Seems like something has been lost even though a lot has been gained at the Moapa Travel Plaza.